de_sitio, Mexico City

de_sitio is a non-profit platform with no permanent address devoted to the conception, development and promotion of contemporary art projects. de_sitio seeks to expand the possibilities of collaboration in different contexts with different organizations and individuals in order to foster continuous and consistent exchange in the development of ideas and concrete research. These are shared through different formats such as publications, residencies, exhibitions and other public programs. Focusing on the work process, de_sitio is a flexible and critical platform that prioritizes those projects based on dialogue.

As the first Jordanian audio-visual works begin to fall into the public domain, a constellation of interests are translating, drafting and revising copyrights laws, trade agreements and licences to control the flow of culture and build new markets.

Against the backdrop of these emerging intellectual property markets, in 2008 artists Eileen Simpson and Ben White embarked on a period of research in Amman, Jordan – speaking to lawyers, copyright activists, software developers, artists, musicians, journalists, curators, film makers and critics – in an attempt to seek out the common cultural resources of Jordan’s public domain.

The result is Struggle In Jerash – a project convened around a lost 1957 Jordanian feature film of the same name, which fell out-of-copyright the year of the artists’ residency, and is used as a catalyst to explore value and meaning in archival material.

The Admission to the Seminar is free, but the number of places is limited, please RVSP to: E.L.Nadin@lboro.ac.uk

Song Division - Camden Arts Centre

Artists Eileen Simpson and Ben White develop a series of experimental events exploring the sonic potentials of materials gleaned from the edges of the public domain. Simpson and White have sourced a range of songs from early commercial releases that are currently subject to a conflict in copyright status through a split in ownership between lyrics and musical composition.

Manuscripts and recordings have been edited, redacted, cut-up and processed to suppress copyright-secured elements and enable the release of public domain layers from the proprietary control of commercial publishers. Invited guests process the collected material through short live performances.

Shadowboxing, Royal College of Art, London

Open Music ArchivePre-release

Recorded: Thursday 17th March 2011 (18:30 – 20:30)

Broadcast: scheduled for 2021

We were invited by Sean Dockray to contribute to his Public Monument. We produced a future public domain radio programme – projecting forward a selection of out-of-copyright archive music and recordings currently controlled under copyrights due to expire by the time of broadcast in the year 2021.

In 2011 in the UK, the term of copyright in a musical composition is limited to the life of the author plus 70 years, while the term of copyright in a sound recording is limited to 50 years from the date of recording. Once this bundle of proprietary rights expires, a music recording enters the public domain and is held in common. The legal frameworks, which define the limits of the public domain, are by no means fixed. The future of the public domain is precarious – the field of culture is increasingly colonised for private interests as proprietors of intellectual property continually lobby for the extension of their control.

Pre-release optimistically opens up a future channel for public domain material beyond individual proprietary and commercial interests – a truly free broadcast for an imminent public domain.

Tempo Documentary Festival, Stockholm

We are also contributing to the event Reality is Fiction:Saturday 12 March 12:30 – 13:30 Skrapan
with Göran du Rées (professor Film School Gothenburg), Per Wirten (author and journalist) and Ben White and Eileen Simpson
Moderator: Shang Imam (journalist at Swedish Radio)NOTE: discussion is in English

Artists Film Club - ICA London

Artists Film Club - The Brilliant and The Dark

Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Mall, London SW1Y 5AH

2 December 2010

Screening and Discussion 7:30 pmLive Performance 8:15 pm (doors)

Eileen Simpson and Ben White present their new short video work The Brilliant and the Dark, a restaging of a 1969 cantata for women’s voices of the same name. Following a discussion with the artists and choir leader Deborah Coughlin (chaired by curator Anna Colin), the radically remixed cantata will be performed live by the extraordinary 22-piece women’s choir Gaggle.

Free, Book for the Screening, Discussion and Live Performance (limited capacity) or only for the Live Performance
Please call the Box Office on 020 7930 3647 to reserve your tickets.

The Brilliant and the Dark live performance supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England

LuckyPDF TV Autoitalia Live

Running from the 9th October 2010 and broadcasting for 5 consecutive Saturdays at 5pm, Auto-Italia was transformed into a fully functioning independent TV studio.

We contributed to the last episode broadcast live Saturday 12th November:

Through re-enactment and lip-synching, Open Music Archive present a series of musical vignettes structured around public domain recordings from 1920s blues and jazz to 1960s soul via 1930s dance band crooners.

Al Bowlly’s 1936 newsreel appearance is scrambled (You’ve Got What Gets Me reversed and flipped as Me Gets What Got You’ve) and Vaughn De Leath’s 1927 crooning of Are You Lonesome Tonight? is melodically de-saturated and retroactively mutated by a 1960s monotone female Elvis.

Catalogue screening at SLG

The Brilliant and The Dark video screening as part of:

Catalogue presents Film screening and Tatiana Trouvé in conversation

6 October 2010, 7pm, Free

South London Gallery
65 Peckham Road
London SE5 8UH

To celebrate its first anniversary, Franco-British online contemporary art magazine Catalogue presents a special evening comprising a screening of films by artists featured in the magazine during its first year of publication, as well as a rare opportunity for a limited audience to hear Tatiana Trouvé in conversation with an invited speaker.

The Brilliant and The Dark Live

Thursday 23 September7 - 8.30 pm

Eileen Simpson and Ben White have invited the extraordinary 22 piece women's choir Gaggle to reinterpret The Brilliant and the Dark, a 1969 cantata for women's voices and to perform it live at The Women's Library.

In addition they have asked vocalist Ellen Southern to create a new copyleft remix score, which will be performed with live band and singers on the same night.

All will be accompanied by an exclusive DJ set created by Eileen Simpson that celebrates music produced by women, gleaned from The Women's Library

For the exhibition we negotiated with copyright owners music publishers Josef Weinberger for permission to use elements from the work and invited the all-women choir Gaggle to remix the music and lyrics of the original composition for a new music video. Filmed on location in The Women's Library exhibition hall, the video re-animates the 1969 performance through restaging situations – from the backstage preparations, to choreographed moments in the live event – which are documented in photographs held in the Library’s collection. The performers are seen in new costumes referencing the originals and amidst remade props.

Parallel Anthology - Whitechapel Late

Friday 30 July, 8pm

Whitechapel Gallery
77-82 Whitechapel High Street
London E1 7QX

An evening of music inspired by musicologist, record collector and artist Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music. Simpson and White have collected parallel public domain versions of the anthology recordings not closed down by copyright - from non-attributed folk versions, to commercial recordings whose proprietary interests have expired. For this event musicians and producers have been invited to perform covers and remixes of Parallel Anthology for a night of plugged and unplugged performances.

Berlin Documentary Forum

The BERLIN DOCUMENTARY FORUM is a new programmatic initiative at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt. It is an interdisciplinary festival showcasing visual, audiovisual and performative works from all over the world. It is also the first festival to stage a forum that debates the contemporary documentary as a politically committed form of representation.

Curator Eduardo Thomas presents a selection of contemporary experimental documentaries – all shown as German premieres. The program brings together films recently made in South America, the Middle East and Asia. The discussions with the filmmakers depart from previously dominant notions such as ‘authorship’, ‘authority’ and ‘authenticity’.

LOOP Barcelona

London Seen will be launched at this year’s edition of LOOP and functions as an exploration into moving-image practices on London’s contemporary art scene; prolific in exhibition formats, interactions and challenges to conventional circuits. The project brings to Barcelona platforms and exhibition spaces which reflect innovative engagement with and display of video and film. Gathering different types of sites for display, production, distribution and/or archiving of moving-image works, London Seen project aims to generate a reflection around the specific treatment of video and film, by bringing together the participant’s practices and trajectories.

Parallel Anthology - 17th Biennale of Sydney

Join Eileen Simpson and Ben White for an evening of free music launching their Parallel Anthology project inspired by musicologist and artist Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music. Simpson and White have collected parallel public domain versions of the anthology recordings not closed down by copyright; from non-attributed folk versions, to commercial recordings whose proprietary interests have expired. The evening will feature a free CD giveaway and a DJ set featuring Parallel Anthology tracks, recordings from their Open Music Archive and new copyleft remixes, covers and versions made with a range of collaborators.

The Brilliant and The Dark - The Women's Library

The Women's Library
London Metropolitan University
Old Castle Street
London E1 7NT

12 May - 2 October 2010
FREE

The Women's Library exhibitions are open Monday to Friday, 9.30am to 5.30pm, with a late evening opening on Thursday until 8.00pm.

curated by Anna Colin

Struggle In Jerash - Gasworks London

I Want to See / Struggle in Jerash
Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige / Eileen Simpson and Ben White

Gasworks
155 Vauxhall Street
London SE11 5RH

16th April 2010 - 30th May 2010
Opening: Thursday 15 April 2010

As the first Jordanian audio-visual works begin to fall into the public domain, a constellation of interests are translating, drafting and revising copyrights laws, trade agreements and licences to control the flow of culture and build new markets.

Against the backdrop of these emerging intellectual property markets, in 2008 artists Eileen Simpson and Ben White embarked on a period of research in Amman, Jordan – speaking to lawyers, copyright activists, software developers, artists, musicians, journalists, curators, film makers and critics – in an attempt to seek out the common cultural resources of Jordan’s public domain.

The result is Struggle In Jerash – a project convened around a lost 1957 Jordanian feature film of the same name, which fell out-of-copyright the year of the artists’ residency, and is used as a catalyst to explore value and meaning in archival material.

Conference "Our Way, by the Way. New Strategies for Culture" took place in the Warsaw University Library between the 11th and the 13th of December 2009. Lectures and discussions were dedicated to the issues of alternative strategies for independent culture and its possible transformations

Ghost Trace Stellar

Organised by Polytechnic & Kate Sweeney. Part of the Polytechnic ecologies programme

We're working with Polytechnic to develop an evening of free music at Star and Shadow, an open volunteer-run social space and Cinema in Newcastle. We're inviting bands, musicians, producers and DJs to perform covers, versions, remixes or interpretations of the 1920s and 30s out-of-copyright folk, blues, and jazz from the Open Music Archive. A series of live plugged and unplugged performances will be recorded and licensed under Creative Commons ShareAlike, generating a new resource - free for use and reuse in the future.

The event opens up a temporary channel for music, exchange and discussion that operates beyond individual proprietary and commercial interests.

Felix's Machines

Eileen Simpson and Ben White (Open Music Archive) play a DJ set featuring out-of-copyright clips, blips and loops sampled from 19th Century music boxes, player pianos and other automated music machines. This is followed by a performance of new compositions made in collaboration with Felix Thorn for Felix's Machines, and assembled from out-of-copyright material for the player piano.

FREE GIFT: a copyleft licensed CD featuring the new compositions and source files will be given away on the night.

Open Music Archive Outlet, London

Artists Eileen Simpson and Ben White set up the first temporary outlet for their Open Music
Archive. Distributing direct to the public, the outlet makes available the out-of-copyright and copyleft
material from the archive on CDs, CDRs, and vinyl. Featuring new live recordings from Serafina
Steer, Hest, Magic Arm, Sisters of Transistors, Per Ahlund and Mathias Josefson (Fylkingen),
MC Strategy (Broke 'n' English); studio recordings by Homelife Duo, Liz Green, Sundowner; clips, blips and loops sampled mechanical music boxes; and 1920s and 30s archive source recordings by Leroy Carr, Virginia Liston, Cleo Brown and Honey Hill and more. . .

Visitors to the outlet can browse, listen and take away the music. The CDs and records are available
in exchange for a suggested donation and all material is out-of-copyright or copyleft - free for use and
reuse in the future.

Photosocial, The Photographers' Gallery

Photosocial [4]
29 May 2008 18:30-21:30
Photographers Gallery

See new photography with music, debate and diversion.

The next in an ongoing series of bar nights will include a debate on The Amateur vs the Professional as well as a projection of Screen Tests by Neil Cummings, Marysia Lewandowska, Eileen Simpson and Ben White.

Free, spaces limited, so come along early!

Electronic Music Festival, Amman

Outdoor screening of Screen Tests, and Dragline with live musical accompaniment by Ben White. The music, which has been sourced from out-of-copyright early 20th Century 78rpm records will be manipulated in real-time.

Disclosures, London

For Disclosures Eileen Simpson & Ben White create Declose, a project to create a copyleft licensed 12" vinyl scratch tool containing a range of samples, beats and extracts made from the out-of-copyright blues, jazz and folk housed in the Open Music Archive.

The artists promote collaboration and seek to explore its significance and value for creative production. For Declose they invite producers and members of the burntprogress community to create new remix tracks, short vocal snippets, percussive noises, samples, breaks and beats - made entirely from the out-of-copyright music in the Open Music Archive - to make up the battle vinyl.

Declose Launch Event:

Featuring scratch routines, live experiments and improvisation using the Declose vinyl by:

Clips, Blips and Loops #2, Geneva

For Clips, Blips and Loops #2, we are inviting producers, musicians and DJs to contribute to the collection of free source tools available here. This is an extension of a project developed in Stockholm, November 2007. In February 2008 all of the tools will be gathered together to produce a CD that will be freely distributed at a public performance at an event in Geneva on 13th March.

Loose Booty, London

For Loose Booty, a new exhibition by Pearl Projects, Eileen Simpson & Ben White have brought together a number of different cover versions of Pinetop's Boogie Woogie, originally written by Clarence "Pinetop" Smith of Chicago (d. 1929). The various out-of-copyright versions, including those by Bing Crosby and Honey Hill, and a new track made entirely from the out-of-copyright elements, are to be burned on CDs and given away for free at the exhibition as a way of disseminating materials that are in the public domain.

Vegas Gallery
64-66 Redchurch Street
London E2 7DP

After Party - featuring Open Music Archive out-of-copyright/copyleft laptop and DJ set
23 January 9pm 'til late at Green and Red Basement Bar 51 Redchurch Street, E2

Screen Tests - The Bigger Picture, Manchester

Screen Tests - Neil Cummings, Marysia Lewandowska, Eileen Simpson, Ben White
The film unfolds as a series of Andy Warhol-like screen tests, slowly revealing the location and the occupation of those before the camera - students and models from the Manchester School of Art.

Broadcast Times - Neil Cummings, Marysia Lewandowska, Eileen Simpson, Ben White
As the exhibition train leaves the platform, we are taken on a journey of 'a happy hunting ground for tycoons' the birth of commercial television broadcasting.

Who Makes And Owns Your Work, Stockholm

In an attempt to cross the boundaries of idea and practice, Iaspis and Konstfack initiated a project on production, distribution and ownership of cultural matter and artistic knowledge starting in December 2006. On 17th November 2007 the project will open itself up by letting the gathered knowledge be combined with that of invited guests, in an event aiming at an in-depth look on the making and owning of contemporary culture.

Free-to-air (Cornerhouse, Manchester)

From 15-25th July 2007 Open Music Archive will be resident at Cornerhouse, Manchester's international centre for contemporary arts.

For two weeks Eileen Simpson & Ben White will be producing a series of live events and programmes for a temporary FM radio station broadcasting across Manchester. (106.5FM)

We're inviting bands and musicians to respond to the rare out-of-copyright folk, blues, and jazz from the Open Music Archive; to work with forgotten lyrics, chords, melodies and beats, and to make new cover versions of forgotten tracks.

For two weeks the gallery will host live plugged and unplugged performances and one-off broadcasts by Manchester's finest upcoming and established bands and musicians.